


managing the art of stillness

by poalimal



Series: the process [2]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Ableism, Concept of Gender, F/M, Gen, Interracial Relationship, Multiracial Family, Second-Gen Angst, The Process, Unrequited Love, fear of intimacy, mention of outing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-06 06:37:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14636121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poalimal/pseuds/poalimal
Summary: 'When did Jack get so good with kids?' Justin grumbles.





	managing the art of stillness

 

 

'And Lindsay is the oldest boy or the oldest girl?' asks Justin. It's probably the tenth or so question he's asked about the kids. Jack doesn't seem to mind. In fact, Justin suspects Jack secretly likes it when he asks him this kind of stuff. It's-- endearing.

'Larissa and Shits play it kind of fast and loose with the whole gender thing,' Jack explains, patiently signalling for the car across from them to go ahead. 'Just call the kids by their names and you should be fine. Lindsay's the oldest, then there's Sam and Arin, then there's Baby.' He glances away from the road for a bit, and sends a quick smile Justin's way. He remains, Justin thinks glumly, extremely handsome. 'Don't stress. The kids'll like you just fine.'

'I'm not stressing,' Justin says. Not about that, at least. 'Kids love me.'

 

* * *

 

The kids do not love him. They greet him perfunctorily and then bumrush Jack headfirst. Justin's got five nieces and nephews. He's not used to being ignored!

'But I brought _Legos_.' Justin is not ashamed to admit that he's pouting a little. 'Everybody loves Legos!'

'It's ok,' Lardo says, patting him on the shoulder. 'No one can really compare to Uncle Jack.' The twins, Sam and Arin, are both tugging insistently at Jack's dorky cargo pants, while Lindsay preens smugly in his arms. Even Baby, wiggling wildly in Shitty's arms, seems to want to get in on the action.

'When did Jack get so good with kids?' Justin grumbles. He has a distinctive memory of Jack literally running out of the Haus when Adam's sister Ruth came with her kids to visit Samwell.

'Probably somewhere around the time you called off your engagement and moved to Canada without letting any of us know for three months,' Lardo says calmly.  
  
Justin swallows. So they're talking about it now.

Lardo seems to read his mind. 'Hey,' she says, looking at him closely. 'Don't look so scared. We don't have to talk about it right this minute! I was just kidding.' He looks at her. 'Well. I wasn't really,' she admits, picking at her nail. 'I shouldn't have said it like that.' She sighs, brushes her hair out of her eyes. 'You know, maybe... maybe it'd be better if we didn't talk about it right now.'

'No,' says Justin. 'We should. Talk about it.' He just doesn't know how to start.

Lardo sends him a small smile. 'You look like I'm going to eat you,' she jokes. 'Really, Rans, it's ok. I want you to feel ok here.'

'I am ok,' says Justin. 'Really. I am. And I do think we should talk about it. So. Like.' He resigns himself to sounding like an idiot throughout this conversation. But, well - if talking about your feelings was easy, then everybody would be doing it. 'How are you feeling right now? Like, what's going through your mind?'

Lardo stretches out her legs, and takes in a big breath. 'Well, first off,' she says, 'I would like to stress that I am really, extremely happy you're here. It's--' She pauses. Justin leans back into the couch beside her, and waits.

'Well, if you don't want to, bé, you don't have to,' Shitty says, suddenly quite audible.

'I want!' says Lindsay.

Jack murmurs something in response. Then Sam and Arin are off again, chirping back and forth in what Justin has been informed is their made-up twin language.

'We've got the kids going to Vietnamese classes, you know,' says Lardo. 'And there's this parent's group we go to, for parents of biracial kids? We might have to find a new one, 'cus Shannon does _not_ know how to give the other white parents a break.' She huffs out a laugh. Justin shakes his head, because he can actually pretty clearly imagine it, and it sounds exhausting. 'But they put on these really fun activities. Like, going to the movies, the waterpark. Stuff like that. The kids love it, they've made a bunch of friends. And my family's over all the time, they're never alone, it's--

'I knew that when I decided to be with Shannon, it would be hard. I knew that, and I know that. And I'm glad we have all these places we can take the kids where they can feel happy, and understood. And I know it's this--' She swallows. 'This whole other world for Shannon, too. Like. There's books and there's law and then there's-- there's this, there's _life_. And I'm trying to find the words to explain to him that--I didn't really grow up like this, either. My parents didn't want me to speak English with an accent, they didn't talk to me in Vietnamese. My kids speak it better than me. Sometimes it feels like I'm caught between four worlds.

'And I _love_ Shannon, and I love Bits, I love Jack and Adam and Linda-- but I've missed _you_. I miss you getting me. You get what it's like, being a second-gen kid.' She nudges him. 'The resentment. The shame. The shame _about_ the shame.' She laughs, a little watery, and smiles when he wipes her face. 'The pride. I've missed you, Rans. I've missed not having to explain. And.' She takes a deep breath, and lets him take her hand. 'It really hurts that you came here 'cus Jack invited you, and not when I've been begging you to all these years.'

'I'm sorry,' Justin croaks. 'I'm sorry I left. I'm sorry I haven't been here for you.' He doesn't know how to say that it felt easier to come when he thought of it as a favour for Jack. Not as something that he needed, too.

'Did you feel that we wouldn't be there for you?' Lardo asks, sniffing a bit. Her nose is going shiny and pink. 'Is that why you left? I know the twins were just born, and Shannon and I were busy planning our wedding--'

'No, no, no,' Justin says. His heart is one big sinking ache in his chest. 'I'm sorry to cut you off. It wasn't that. It wasn't you-- at all. At _all_. It was all me. It was-- it was just really hard? I felt so ashamed. I know Alma told. A lot of people. About me. I know she was upset. She had a right to be. But the way she told my family-- it sounded so simple. Like I had a guy on the side or something. But I'd. I never,' he falters. 'I'd never been with a man like that. And it felt humiliating to say. Because then they would ask, well, how do you even know? She even. Umm. She _implied_... that I was doing it over Adam.' He squeezes Lardo's hand tight, looking at the crease of their knuckles. 'And I couldn't look any of you in the face and say, No, I've never felt that way about him. Because I had. I have.' Lardo reaches up with the sleeve of her paint-smudged hoodie and dabs at his face. He smiles at her gratefully. 'I didn't know how to face any of that. I didn't know how to face any of you. So I ran. I packed up all my shit. And I went back to Canada.

'And it's still so hard,' he swallows, 'to come back and explain. Adam and I will never be the same. And I get why, and I've made my peace with it. But with you-- I didn't know if I could take it.'

'You _idiot_ ,' Lardo says, blinking hard and fast. 'It doesn't have to be the same. _We_ don't have to be the same. We can have something better. Ok?'

Justin laughs out wetly, hugging her tight. 'Yea,' he says. 'I can believe that. If it's you. I can believe it.'

'We ok over here?' Jack asks softly. Lardo and Justin let go of each other. Jack's standing behind the armchair, gently bouncing Baby in his arms.

He's so good with kids, Justin thinks fondly, wiping his face.

'Yea,' he answers, finally, using his words to match his smile. 'We're good. Just. Catching up.' He laughs again, relieved all the way to his bones. Downstairs he can hear Shitty and the kids caterwauling.

Jack stares at him intently for a long moment, then slides his eyes to Lardo. Lardo notices, because of course she does, and she narrows her eyes.

'Oi - don't look at me like that when you're carrying my kid, Jack,' says Lardo. She opens up her arms, smirking a little. 'C'mon. Gimme.'

Jack dutifully makes his way over to them. Justin sinks down a little in the couch, and watches him come.  
  
Jack, he thinks, licking away a stray tear, is very tall. He has to lean over Justin some to pass Baby down to Lards.

'Ok?' he asks her carefully. His eyes flick down to Justin at the last minute. Justin looks at Jack's shoulders, his throat, the simple concern on his face. The look of a good friend.

Don't fuck this one up, Justin thinks, nodding to Jack's question before breaking eye contact; his heart still thumping hard in his chest.

'Yea, Jack,' says Lardo, grinning down at Baby. At Justin, when he catches her eye. 'We're ok.'

 

**Author's Note:**

> I. We will ignore for the moment the very specific immigration stipulations which would bind Justin's time spent working and living in the States. Anyway. I probably first encountered the idea of Justin going AWOL at an unexpected life change in the lovely fic A Place in the Country (https://archiveofourown.org/works/13085760).  
> II. Shitty's supposed to be calling Lindsay 'baby' when he calls them bé - but I don't speak Vietnamese, so that could absolutely be incomplete or inaccurate. Feedback on this welcomed.  
> III. Don't give Legos to very young kids lol


End file.
